I have a 1954 with a 235 engine. I got the engine overhauled 3-4 years ago when a couple valves finally burned up. Since then my oil pressure is low. (It's a long story so bear with me).
I worried about it for a while, then after watching the meter drop to "0" after a 20 minute drive I dropped the pan and found the oil pump gasket in parts in the bottom and the oil pump base only loosely attached to the body(held on with a couple threads). I thought I'd found the oil pressure problem. So I fixed that and put in a filter(after market, hung on the firewall, plumbed from the oil pressure fitting and dumping back in at the plug on the front left of the engine.) But the pressure was only a little better. When hot it still dropped to near "0". I started to worry that the year of low pressure hard burned up bearings and that was why my pressure was low.
Now it has started making a scraping noise in the engine, a high pitched click, grating. So I checked the valve rockers and they weren't getting oil. There's only a tiny drip coming up to the rocker shaft. Is this right? I have no idea if this is the source of the new noise or not.
I was thinking I could just return the oil from the oil filter to the plug on the head that leads to the top end lubrication. Would this work? Should I be worried that this has fried bearings?
I have tried to check passages with compessed air and I get almost no flow of air from the back plug under the lifter cover into the block. And there was almost no oil coming out of there when I ran the oil pump with an electric drill. I'd appreciate anyone's experience on this.
I took it back to the machinist who did the engine overhaul and he thought the oil pressure was just fine. But he's a young guy. Am I just a nervous nell?
